Sail of Stone

8

When he felt the wind in his face, the memories came. It was always like that. It could be light or dark. The memories. Out there, there was no day, no night. The sea was its own world. His work revolved around the trawling, the winches, the work deck, up and down, every five hours, seldom at night, at first, but he had wanted it to be otherwise. It was still hell to try to sleep up in the forecastle along with seven others, everything sour, wet, always nights without sleep. The work ached like a shadow in his body. No warmth, no feeling of dry skin. He would dream about it during the weeks out there. The dry skin.

The wind changed on the night when Frans went off the back with the trawl net. He never heard the scream; no one did. Frans was gone without a scream. Yet another gray stone on its way to the bottom, but not really. Whatever fell into the North Sea here, between Stavanger and Peterhead, came ashore again up in northern Norway. A lonely journey through the black currents. Frans.

Was that what had happened?

They prayed during their journeys back, and they went directly to the pub from the harbor. He remembered when he walked in, but never when he walked out. He had had so many similar nights there; all those nights ended without memories.

At sea it was never possible to wash away the tiredness, and when they came ashore again he did his best to get it to pass.

The evening he got caught by the trawl door could have been his last. He became more careful with the drink after that, for a while.

He sat outside his house. He could see the old church from there. He saw cars on their way to and from the church, and to and from the golf course that was on the point behind the church. The idiots hit their balls into the water and didn’t understand why.

The westernmost viaduct ran in from the left, in his field of vision, and became part of the church, or maybe it was the church that became part of the viaduct. He had studied this image many times. They belonged together. The viaducts were cathedrals of another time, the time that came after, and it was natural that they should converge with the churches.

He spit toward the church. He regretted it. He dried his mouth and got up. He walked on the street that didn’t have a name. A child passed but didn’t look up at him. He was invisible to the child, too.

When children don’t see the invisible, there is no longer any hope.

A middle-aged couple came down the stairs, and they didn’t see him. He stepped aside so that they wouldn’t pass right through him. He heard their voices but didn’t understand the language, or maybe he didn’t hear it over the wind.

He ordered his ale at the Three Kings. He sat for a long time in front of the glass that no one else could see. He signaled to the woman behind the bar, and she looked in the other direction. He had spoken with her on other days, he knew it.

She knew.

He couldn’t tell what she was thinking now.

She had tried to talk to him but he hadn’t wanted to listen. She had said one word, but he didn’t want to hear that word. She had said another word; it was the word “lie.” She had said the word “life.” She had said the words “lifelong lie.”

She had said too much.

The couple he’d met on the steps came into the pub and sat at one of the two tables by the window. The woman behind the bar stiffened, as though she dreaded taking an order. No, it wasn’t that. The couple looked around. The man said something and he heard what he said this time, and he recognized the language. He carried remains of it inside himself. He didn’t think about it anymore, but he heard the words and could still put them together if he had to.

He wouldn’t have to.

He ordered another glass from the woman, who couldn’t see him. He drank with his back to the couple, who sat by the window and looked out over the viaducts and the sea.

Frans hadn’t been the first.

In the currents, the bodies embraced each other.

Jesus. Jesus!

When he came out he passed a truck filled with fish. He knew where it came from and where it was going. The truck raced down, on its way west. He smelled the odor of fish through the diesel fumes, or he thought he did. Naturally he only thought so.

The truck disappeared down into the tunnel, a danger for anyone coming the opposite direction. He waited for the crash but didn’t hear anything, not this time. He only heard the familiar roar as the motor forced itself up the hills on the other side.

He would never go there again. Never again!

He walked east. He had a meeting.